Auguste Chevalier

Who was Auguste Chevalier?

Auguste Jean Baptiste Chevalier was a French botanist, taxonomist, and explorer of tropical Africa, especially of French colonial empire Africa and Côte d'Ivoire. He also explored and collected plants in South America and tropical Asia. Chevalier was a prolific contributor to the knowledge of African plants, studying forest trees and their woods, grasses, and agricultural plants of Africa. Unlike other botanists who studied the plants of tropical Africa, Chevalier also ranged to the floral regions of the Sahara.

In 1896 he obtained his degree in natural sciences and in 1901 his phD from the University of Lille. At Lille he worked as an assistant to botanist Charles Eugene Bertrand. In 1899-1900, he took part in a scientific mission in French Sudan, and in 1905 established a botanical garden in Dalaba, French Guinea. From 1913 to 1919, he collected plants throughout Indochina. Later, he attained a professorship in Paris.

In 1937 he was elected as a member of the Académie des sciences, serving as its president in 1953. He was a also member of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer, president of the Société botanique de France, vice-president of the Comité national de géographie and a member of the Académie d'agriculture de France.